Wormwood: A Collection of Short Stories

Formerly titled SWAMP FOETUS * IN THE HEART OF YOUR DESIRE... In an old car rocking down a North Carolina highway with the radio on so loud you can't hear the music. . . Behind a dusty Georgia carny show. . . In a mausoleum in Baton Rouge, or in an alley in Calcutta. . . Here wanderers come to rest, the lost and lonely press their bodies up against each other, the heat rises, flesh yields, bones are bared, blood spills. This is the landscape of today's most brilliant young horror writer, Poppy Z. Brite. IN THE CRADLE OF YOUR FEARS... Now, in a collection that sings like cutting edge rock 'n' roll and shows the deft touch of a master storyteller, Poppy Z. Brite weaves her unique spell of the sensual, the frightening, and the forbidden. . . "Every page of Brite's work stresses the beautiful and heartbreaking strangeness of the world."--Fangoria CONTENTS A Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics of Poppy [Foreword] by Dan Simmons 1. Calcutta, Lord of Nerves (1992) 2. Footprints in the Water (1990) 3. His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood (1990) 4. How to Get Ahead in New York (1992) 5. Missing (1986) 6. Optional Music for Voice and Piano (1986) 7. The Ash of Memory, the Dust of Desire (1991) 8. The Elder (1987) 9. The Sixth Sentinel (1993) 10. Xenophobia (1990) 11. Angels (1987, vt Goldengrove Unleaving) 12. A Georgia Story (1987, vt Love (Ash 1)) Published December 1995 (in the book: January 1996)